Lucky or good?

LaPorte man recalls World War II bombing raids in Indochina.

LaPorte man recalls World War II bombing raids in Indochina.

June 23, 2007|LOU MUMFORD Tribune Columnist

LAPORTE -- Upon hearing Barney O'Hara talk about his World War II experiences as a B-24 bomber pilot, two possibilities come to mind: Either he was pretty dog-gone good or he's one lucky Irishman. Consider the day in 1943 when O'Hara and his crew took part in a mission to bomb a refinery operated by the Japanese in Hong Kong. "We were the only airplane out of our squadron to come back that day,'' he said. "We didn't get a bullet hole in our plane." On Sunday, at a fly-in breakfast at Tyler Memorial Airport in Niles, area residents will have a rare opportunity to meet the lucky/good O'Hara. The LaPorte resident may be 90, but his memory is as clear as some of the skies his B-24 encountered. And his stories are riveting. The fact that he managed to survive the war is a surprise even to him. "That's why they called us the lucky Irish crew,'' he says. A native of Chicago, O'Hara was 6 when his family moved to Michigan City. Flying was in his blood, prompting his first solo flight in Valparaiso, Ind., at age 21 and his membership in Michigan City's Doodlebug Flying Club. Aspiring to be a commercial pilot but lacking the money for the training, he signed up for the Aviation Cadets, a branch of the Army Air Corps. He said four attempts were required to pass the entry exam. The exam was that tough? "Maybe I was pretty dumb," he said. A second lieutenant after his stateside training, O'Hara, the pilot and flight commander of his B-24, named his plane "Doodlebug" after his flying club back home. Not only was it the largest bomber in the world at the time, but it was "a great airplane to fly," he said. A member of the 373rd Bomb Squadron of the 308th Bomb Group, O'Hara said the bombing mission over the refinery was the first of two very close calls. "We had 100 airplanes ... and we were over the bomb site when for some unknown reason our commanding officer crossed right underneath us," he recalled. "As he did, I grabbed the mike and said to the bombardier, 'Hold those bombs!' Then I peeled off. We made the second run all by ourselves ... and we made a direct hit on the target. "I figured we could catch up with the rest of the formation but we couldn't. Pretty soon, here come six (Japanese) Zeros. We were flying at 21,500 feet and they were climbing so they could dive down on us. Well, two P-40s (fighter planes) came back (from the formation) to help us ... If they hadn't done that, we wouldn't have made it back." Coincidentally, one of the P-40 pilots was from LaPorte, he said. He said his second brush with death occurred during a raid over a cement plant in Haiphong. Prior to the mission, a B-24 crew commanded by an officer by the name of Cunningham apparently had a premonition the mission would be its last, O'Hara said. "Captain Cunningham's crew came to ours and said, 'Here's our watches, here's our rings, here's our money.' They knew they weren't coming back. They just had that feeling," he said. "My crew said, 'How do you think we're getting back if you don't?'" As fate would have it, The B-24 carrying Cunningham and his crew encountered about 40 Zeros and was shot down. On the same day, Cunningham's wife gave birth to the couple's child, O'Hara recalled. O'Hara said a thundercloud helped him evade the Japanese defenders that day. "It's dangerous to fly into a thunderhead -- you get bounced around, and we had three feet of water in the bomb bays -- but it's the only thing that saved us," he said. "When we got out, the Zeros came right back at us, so we went into another cloud. This time, it wasn't a thunderhead. We ran them out of gas and we finally got home." Incredibly, O'Hara said he flew 77 missions without his B-24 absorbing even one enemy shell. The lucky Irishman returned to Michigan City after the war and worked 10 years as an executive pilot for the Thomas Connelly Co. Later, he formed his own company and sold heavy equipment for 45 years. He and his wife, Helen, have a son and a daughter. The union is perhaps as blessed as O'Hara's military experience. He and Helen have been married 64 years.